Back Again
by caskettnana
Summary: Post 7x14, basically Rick's thoughts right after the end of the episode.


_A little something for 7x14, because that episode just destroyed me and I had to write something about it. _

_Less than a week for the new one! Ugh, can't wait!_

_Enjoy it ! _

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**_Back Again_**

This can't be happening.

Not again.

Except, it is. And it's happening all too fast and Castle can't work his mind to function properly. Not now. Not until he knows, he's absolutely sure that Kate is fine, safe.

Even if she's alive at all.

Just the mere thought of it causes all the air to leave his lungs, his heart threatening to beat out of his chest, all of him hollow, outright empty.

His heart is beating too fast, so fast he might have a stroke at any moment. It has been since he learned that his wife had been kidnapped, taken away from him and to God knows where by whoever Kelly Nieman and Jerry Tyson had been ordered around to.

It can't be happening.

Why now, why do all of the ghosts from their past have to always come back to haunt them, to burden them with even more suffering, more anguish and torture. It's what it all feels like, complete torture.

Why can't the world, the universe, whatever it is, why can't it just ... let them have some peace, some happiness, a prospective chance for a bright future they've been working so hard to see through.

All the possible and the unlikely why's and if only's and what if's run though his mind, making his head spin, making him dizzy. And he can't take it anymore, it's all too much, too tiring.

Therefore, the first few tears fog his eyes, his brain. It's all too much.

Why now...

He swallows hard with his throat aching. After the blurring tears comes the rage. It swallows him whole. His entire body shakes with it, chills running from his head to toes.

No matter what he has to do, whatever he has to sacrifice, he will have Kate back. Back to his side where she belongs. He won't accept it. Not now, he won't watch as her life leaves her body, his own following. He won't tolerate that. He won't.

He can't- he wouldn't be able to live with the fact that he could have had done something to stop the worst from happening and hadn't.

And so he makes up his mind. If he wants Kate to be back, if he wants her safe back at where she shouldn't have been taken away from in the first place, Castle has to do everything he can to make that happen.

That side of him, the one only a few people know about and have seen, has to return in full force. The one he wears when the lives of the people he loves most are concerned. The one where anger and determination wins over the vulnerability of the feelings of the situation that he has to try to bury deep inside for his wife's sake.

He'll get her back no matter the cost.

And the heartless sons of bitches that have done this to her, and all the previous things to him, will fall down once and for all. Only he now realizes that whatever could be done to her will always hurt him so much more than what they could do to him.

Before he knows it, memories of their happiest moments are taking over his mind. The first moment they met, the first night together, the proposal, the wedding, and all those special little things in between he won't ever forget. Her voice resounding in his ears has him turning his head. She's not here, not yet, but it's like she never left. He can clearly hear her call him "Babe" with her softest voice, can hear her loudest laugh. He can see her wearing the brightest smile that is only reversed for him. But the one that won't leave him alone is the feeling of her lips against his own and can't help but regret that he didn't take a minute to kiss her properly this morning.

He had taken, what seems, the smallest of things for granted. Once again.

Why does he keep doing that? Shouldn't have he known better by now?

No. No, he's not letting all of it control him now. He won't break down now when his bravery and mind is needed most.

So he straightens, closes his eyes for a moment to open them again, this time wider and clearer, his hands form into fists as he prepares for battle. As he gets ready for whatever may come to him while the only most important goal in mind is to bring the dame of his dreams back home.

Safe and sound.

And broken or not, bruised or not, his wife's will always be the woman he fell so madly in love with and falls a little bit harder every day, with him always as her home to come to. No matter what.

The truth is, they have faced countless challenges and obstacles along the way and both got a little more broken with each one. Still, they always had each other to lean on to and share the burden with. That way, all is bearable.

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_Let me know what you think! :)_


End file.
